


Memories on Water

by Athene



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underswap (Undertale), Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Underswap inspired; not a true Underswap AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-05-12 00:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19217797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athene/pseuds/Athene
Summary: There is no Royal Scientist. That's what everyone tells Papyrus. But he knows there's something—someone—missing in his memories, and his only clue lies in the familiarity he feels in the presence of a mysterious stranger by the riverside.





	1. Collateral Damage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forgotten. How could a monster be completely forgotten? It was a question that Papyrus repeated to himself as he stumbled through Hotland in a daze.
> 
> But even as he walked away from one tragedy, he would soon find himself standing before another.

Could skeletons feel nauseous? He certainly felt _something_ as he stumbled out of the lab, burying his face in his removed lab coat to wipe away the slimy film of terror sweat. Undyne had practically pushed him out the door when she’d found him pacing through the premises, concerned and exasperated that he refused to rest in the on-site sleeping quarters.

 _“Dude, I know you don’t usually sleep a lot_ anyway, _but… Look._ Look, _you’re scaring the interns with the way you’re acting! Go home, get some sleep, and we’ll talk tomorrow. Or— heck, take tomorrow off too; I’ll talk to the others about it. You look awful, Pap.”_

 _“Everything is gone, Undyne._ Gone. _That— that doesn’t just_ happen _!”_

_“Sure, it does—especially with all the experiments we do here. That’s what backups are for.”_

_“Do we have_ backup royal scientists _now?!”_

Seething unnecessarily into the fabric of his lab coat, he had to admit that he must have sounded a little hysterical right about then. More than a little hysterical, really. He couldn’t blame Undyne for grabbing him in a headlock and dragging him halfway through the lab and away from the other working scientists. They were working around very volatile magic and machinery, and if he did something surprising in a hysterical state…

Well. He might end up like the Royal Scientist.

Who apparently no longer existed.

And whom apparently nobody remembered.

Thus his pseudo-nausea.

Undyne tried to explain to him, in no uncertain terms, that there wasn’t a Royal Scientist, singular, but a bunch of royal scientists, plural. His own arguments in return, that there _was_ a Royal Scientist, fell short when he couldn’t give the Royal Scientist’s name, let alone describe anything about them. What could he even say? They had been the Royal Scientist as long as he had known them, sometimes called the Singing Scientist because of their penchant for humming and singing throughout the labs. They had provided for him and his brother in what ways they could, proclaiming they were needed and necessary and always in demand.

One more than the other, but always in demand.

They spoke in mysterious ways, for a scientist. None more so than their ominous words before everything went to hell.

_“Tra la la. Somewhere, it’s doomsday. So be careful.”_

~~~

Without even realizing it, Papyrus found himself wandering down to the river rather than up to the elevators. Crumpling his lab coat in his hands in restless agitation, he could only surmise he’d unconsciously decided against going straight home. He—really should do that though, shouldn’t he? He should be checking on Sans. That should have been the first thought on his mind after the accident, but…

He was glad he didn’t have hair to pull out, given the spasmodic clenching of his fists. What kind of brother was he, completely forgetting about Sans in a cloud of numbing confusion? Granted, it was probably still too early for him to be out of school, but after what had just happened, any number of things could have gone wrong. He shifted his coat into one hand to gingerly grasp his wrist. Had he forgotten his watch, too? Protocol was to remove anything that might interfere with electronics right before experiments, but his watch was fully automatic because he loved the puzzle-like complexity of its clockwork, so he mostly removed his watch as a subtle reminder to his more forgetful colleagues. The other option was to risk Undyne having to remind their coworkers, and there were only so many times they could patch the lab walls before the queen started asking about all the recurring repairs in their budget reports. And that was a stress he didn’t need right now, because _he_ had to do the budget reports because their superior, the Royal Scientist—

Why couldn’t he remember their _name_? _Did_ they have a name? Was he forgetting? Stars, he didn’t _want_ to forget everything that had happened. It was already bad enough that the others didn’t—

Something knocked on the top of his skull, startling him out of his accelerating thoughts.

His eye sockets widened as he caught sight of a magic hand floating beside him, and he shook himself into alertness to acknowledge the tall, robed figure standing beyond the edge of the river. The hooded individual canted their head to one side, silence its own kind of question.

Papyrus opened his mouth, hoping to deflect any concern being sent his way, but words refused to form. Both hands anchored again on his lab coat, wringing it in a mindless motion. Why did he come down here? Living in New Home and working in Hotland, he never had reason to journey to the river. So why did his feet carry him down here, of all places? And now here he was with a silent stranger judging him, all because—

The magic hand knocked on his skull again. There was no ill intent in the action; if anything, Papyrus could detect vague confusion in the floating hand. He leaned away, squinting first at the stranger and then the extension of their magic.

“That’s very rude,” he croaked, focusing on the hand as it continued floating beside him. He had seen his share of magic bullets in the form of body parts, but he couldn’t recall ever seeing hands with holes in them before.

The fingers-- _phalanges,_ he dazedly noted, something about that observation striking him as odd—flicked through hand signs, accompanied by a quiet voice barely audible over the distance. “You appear ready to pass out. That’s bad for business.”

It took a long, uncomfortable moment for Papyrus to catch the joke. A feeble titter escaped, far removed from his usual reaction to Sans’ bad puns, and he looked away. “Right… Right! I don’t even know why I came down here. This isn’t the way home at all…”

There was no conviction in his words; they rang weak and lost even in his own mind. His feet felt like heavy weights, refusing to drag him away from the riverside. At a loss, he buried his face in his lab coat again.

“…Are you a skeleton monster?”

The unexpected question prompted Papyrus to peek over his rumpled coat, eye sockets settling on the unmoving figure. Something poked at his memory, nettling at his earlier sense of oddness of this entire encounter.

“Curious. I have not seen another skeleton in years.” The voice was faint, adopting an untroubled affect that Papyrus immediately saw through. “Truly curious.”

What could he possibly say to that? His browbones scrunched together in thought, trying to focus on the moment instead of the catastrophe only he seemed to remember. “Well, that’s no surprise. There are only two skeletons down here—my brother and myself.” He huffed a few weak notes of laughter.

His attempt at levity was met with silence. Nervous energy churned in Papyrus’ bones, and once again he wondered if skeletons could feel nauseous. He considered himself a friendly enough monster, but everything about this situation only added to his mounting distress over what had happened in the labs.

Unwilling to let the silence linger, he stumbled forward, his voice already carrying half-formed thoughts. “I’m used to others being surprised that skeleton monsters exist, but— You seemed more…” _More surprised_ was his initial thought, but that didn’t ring quite right in his head. He trailed off, reframing his thought a moment later. “You seemed concerned?” Yes. Yes, that was phrased better.

Inching closer to the water, Papyrus found himself taking in more of his reluctant conversation partner. The hooded figure stood upon a boat that defied the flow of the river, the long sleeves of their robe folded together below their torso, obscuring their arms. Papyrus surmised that one of their hands had a hole in it, if their magic bullet hand was any sign of what to expect. The stranger was also rather tall, almost half a head taller than Papyrus himself at his most upright.

By all rights, the nervous energy should have followed him to the river’s edge. He still had no answers for what happened in the lab, he still had to check on Sans, and he really should collapse on the closest thing that resembled a bed… And yet something settled inside him, as if the other’s magic radiated a soothing aura.

A familiar aura.

A familiar stranger?

Before Papyrus could further voice his confusion, he caught a whisper over the water. “…Do I know you?”

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one bewildered by their meeting.

Shock lanced through him, spreading like a reticulated pattern upon his magic as his earlier worries were shoved to the forefront. Did he forget something? Was he forgetting people now? Undyne and the others had clearly forgotten about the Royal Scientist and everything around their person, so… So it wasn’t out of the question that he was experiencing side effects.

“I … don’t know.”

He didn’t know why he came down here. He didn’t know why he hesitated to leave. He didn’t know why this stranger was familiar. He didn’t remember. Dark. It was all dark.

There was that nauseous feeling again. This time, he didn’t attempt to push it down. A shudder passed through his neck and shoulders, his legs buckling under him as he dropped his coat to instead clutch at his skull. He staggered, failing to catch himself in his rising panic.

Hands caught him. Arms held him. An anxious noise eked out of him as he rattled against a thick, dark robe.

Familiar. It was familiar.

And yet there were no memories when he reached out.

No name. No face.

Nothing beyond this moment of awkward—and much needed—comfort.

His soul ached as the dam inside of him burst, and he finally wept, mourning for everything that he had lost.


	2. On the Subject of Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus returns home to check on Sans and tries to broach the topic of the Royal Scientist.

The first thing he did when he returned home was hug his brother.  
  
Sans smiled in that delighted way he always did when he was swept up in his brother’s arms; Papyrus surmised that he got the brief impression of flying every time he lifted him up like that. It was a typical greeting between them, a bit of playfulness in which Papyrus took full advantage of their height difference, but today he let the hug linger.  
  
“Uh, bro? Something wrong?”  
  
Maybe he let the hug linger a little too long. Or maybe he was standing a bit too still as he held his brother. Whatever the case, Sans was peering up at him with a raised browbone.  
  
“Nothing! Nothing at all.” He very briefly wished he was better at lying, cringing under his brother’s scrutiny. “…Well. ‘Nothing’ might be the problem? If that makes sense?”  
  
Confusion glimmered in Sans’ eyelights, but he said nothing until he was back on the floor. “You look tired. Go sit down and I’ll put something together. Nothing’s worse than dealing with nothing with nothing in your stomach.”  
  
Papyrus groaned, his fingerbones clacking against his skull as he covered his face with one hand. “We don’t even have stomachs, brother.”  
  
Regardless of his own mutterings, he wandered over to the couch that took up the majority of their living room. He considered turning on the television as a distraction, but it would be a short-lived one with Sans already scurrying around the kitchen. And so he settled, mind churning with what he could possibly say to his brother on the subject of … ‘nothing.’  
  
“Do you remember our time in the royal labs, Sans?” he inquired, looking over his shoulder in an effort to project his voice in Sans’ direction.  
  
“Sure. Of course.” The voice came from his immediate vicinity, and he turned his head to see Sans perched on the arm of the couch with a plate on his lap. The proffered plate held two stacked slices of bread, a stray piece of potato hinting that Sans had sandwiched yesterday’s potato salad into a makeshift snack. “You make it sound so ancient though, bro. Like you didn’t just go to work today.”  
  
Papyrus quickly shook his head in the negative, not yet touching the sandwich. “It’s nothing like that! I, er… Work is…” His shoulders slumped under the weight of his growing distress. “Something happened. I cannot recall _what,_ but there is a distinct memory gap. And yet, apparently, nothing is out of place. Hence my earlier answer of nothing.”  
  
Sans made a considerable effort to not look perplexed by the explanation, especially with Papyrus all of two feet away. His perpetual smile tightened at the corners. “That was as clear as mud, bro. Sorry.”  
  
“Yes, yes, I realized as soon as I started.” Papyrus sighed, shutting his eyes in thought. “…I distinctly remember there being only one Royal Scientist. But apparently that is not true, and there is instead a _group_ of royal scientists. That is why I asked what you remember.” With his piece clarified, Papyrus finally busied himself eating the sandwich.  
  
The fact that Sans did not answer right was a good sign; it meant he trying to puzzle out what he had been told, jaw resting on his knuckles as he stared into the middle distance. When he spoke, the concentration was evident in his voice. “I remember being in the lab a lot. Lots of tests to, y’know, make sure I was healthy. The tests were always done by the same doctor.”  
  
It wasn’t the definitive confirmation he was looking for, but a question was quick to form in his mind. “Do you happen to remember who?”  
  
Again, there was no immediate answer. But this silence was more discomfiting than the last, and Papyrus looked up from his plate in time to watch his brother’s eyelights gutter out. “…Who?”  
  
The silence stretched on, unhindered by any explanation attempts, seeming to freeze everything in their small home. Sans looked like a strange bone statue, far beyond any form of sleep as he sat stock still on the arm of the couch with his empty gaze pointed at the far wall. Grimacing, Papyrus shook his head and reached over to pat Sans’ shoulder, unsure of what else he could possibly do. The touch seemed to snap him out of his daze, though there was still confused tension to the corners of his mouth.  
  
With a slow blink and a scratch of his elbow, Sans muttered, “Huh. Must’ve zoned out there for a sec. Sorry, bro.”  
  
Papyrus did his best to smooth out his distress, ignoring the internal screech of dismay at such a potent reaction. That was even _worse_ than his coworkers completely brushing off his comments about a singular Royal Scientist.  
  
Sans stretched, scooting off of the couch arm to sit cross-legged next to his brother. He stretched an arm out to the empty plate, tapping on its rim. “Looks like you polished off that sandwich. Wanna talk about, uh, ‘nothing’ now?”  
  
It was as if something had just … hit the rewind button, like on their VCR. Papyrus boggled, unable to stammer out a response as his mind tried to accept what had just happened. “Oh. Uh. Hm.”  
  
Beyond his sense of panic, Papyrus knew he shouldn’t stoop to lying to his brother. He wasn’t _good_ at it, for one, but he also knew that they were their best support for each other. Especially if what little he recalled about the Royal Scientist was correct and they had a hand in helping them to where they currently lived.  
  
“Still not sure how to put nothing into words?”  
  
But he didn’t want to tempt fate and see Sans react like _that_ again. He _seemed_ fine right now, but what if further talk triggered it again? Or what if it was even worse?  
  
Another time. Yes. After he had recovered a little. After he had digested this situation more.  
  
“Oh-- I. I did not feel like staying at work. I left early and took a walk.”  
  
That much was true, at least.    
  
“Yeah? I guess I’m not surprised. The lab’s pretty stuffy.” Sans quirked a browbone at him, giving him a measured look before continuing. “But so’s Hotland in general, being hot and all.”  
  
Papyrus could practically hear the follow-up question forming in Sans’ head, and he tried to steer the conversation away from anything related to the lab. “It’s much cooler by the river, actually. I spent some time there with the Riverman. Quite a mysterious fellow!”  
  
Sans blinked, clearly not having expected that aside. “The Riverman?”  
  
“He ferries monsters around the Underground! You are forgiven your confusion, as I was not aware of him until that moment as well.” It was easier to muster up exuberance once he pushed past the subject of the Royal Scientist, even as he found himself immediately thinking about his embarrassing display in front of the Riverman. If he ever wandered by the river again, he would have to apologize. “It was rather odd, as he seemed somewhat familiar? But I don’t believe we had met before.”  
  
“Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing about ‘im.” Sans leaned back against the couch, looking thoughtful as he cupped his jaw. “Some of the teachers were talking about improving public transport. Mentioned there was a boat going up and down the Underground for years and years. That’s gotta be your Riverman, yeah?”  
  
“Yes, that sounds right. And that would account for what he said about not having seen a skeleton monster in years!”  
  
“Well, yeah. Pretty sure we’re the only ones, and that’s because of the lab.”  
  
Papyrus shot his brother a careful look at the casual comment, trying to gauge whether or not he could expect a strange reaction. But Sans seemed unaffected for the moment, eyes half-lidded as he relaxed.  
  
“…Speaking of teachers.” He reached over and rubbed the top of Sans’ skull, grinning with the corners of his eye sockets. “What say you tell me about school while we make a proper dinner?”  
  
“Heh.” Sans’ eyelights glowed warmly at the affectionate touch, and he took the plate from Papyrus’ lap before scooting off of the couch. “Sure thing. I’ve been wanting to do something with those taco shell things you grabbed from the store.”  
  
“They were bright yellow and shaped like those pictures of the rising sun. Very appetizing!”  
  
Sans snickered in agreement, waiting patiently for Papyrus to stand before ambling into the kitchen. Papyrus did not follow immediately, giving himself a moment to compartmentalize his work concerns for now. Until tomorrow.  
  
…Or maybe the next day.  
  
Undyne said she would see to him getting tomorrow off, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Papyrus meets a fiery entrepreneur who seems to know the Riverman.


End file.
